One value of morning rituals is how notable change is.

For instance, that it is light now at 6:30, even on an overcast morning.

The ramble with Storm is very much a part of my morning ritual. But it is not first on my list of morning rituals.

A few years ago, my oldest brother, who stares intently inward--he ponders, I mull--asked all of us on family email when we first checked email.

I am not sure when it happened, but checking email is one of the first things I do. That is an interesting shift in society. I wonder when it happened across the board for most of us.

Checking email is not always the first thing I do. Sometimes there are basics of life to attend to, if you catch my drift.

And sometimes I wake up and find a column, a story or a sidebar was written in my head while I was sleeping and all I have to do is write it down before I forget all the nuances.

Those mornings are gifts and I honor them by following through.

A lone dove flew off the brush by the side rail track as the meathead and I crossed over into the land around the town pond. That was it for wildlife, other than a fair amount of songbirds, only a few of which I could identify.

My ritual is actually usually a mix of checking my three emails: my Sun-Times one, my work-related one and my personal one. The reality is that all three blur between work and personal. And I suspect that is true to a degree for everybody, and I wonder when that shift came, too.

Then I look at a handful of work-related web sites: Jay the Joke (OK, that one is only marginally work-related), Rob Feder's media column, the Heartland Outdoors site.

If it is a publishing day I check the Sun-Times outdoors page to see if my column and /or fishing report were put up.

If it is a Friday, I check the Post-Tribune sports page to see that the outdoors column is posted.

The ice, which had looked like it was going to firm up again, was very dicey this morning on the town pond. The open water under the bridge over the neckdown between the two old clay pits was considerably larger. And I suspect the wind today will open up more.

But I could barely put all my weight on the ice cap in the shaded area of the south end of the south pit. It was not enough that I trusted walking on it. Maybe by the weekend we will get one last flurry of ice fishing on the town pond.

The ice fishermen with the ice shanty have hope. Their shanty is still at the boat launch.

All the same, change is coming.

It was fully light by the time I reached home. Back to another daily routine, trying to roust the family on a school day.

Ah, the joys of morning routines and rituals.